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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Teach Yourself Islamic Ideology Lesson 1: Human Beings, the World and Ideology In our world, with its unlimited number of creatures, the human being is a creature who 'thinks', makes choices' and then ‘acts’. On the surface, we are confronted by the behavior and acts of human beings. For instance, we see a human being who 'oppresses'. We see another human being who is 'oppressed'. Then we see a third human being who is ‘indifferent’.

What are the motives and reasons for these various kinds of behavior? Why is one an oppressor and another, oppressed, and a third, indifferent? Of course, many factors play an effective role in the reason behind why a human being acts in a certain way.

But let us not forget that we said a human being is a creature who 'thinks' and then 'acts.’ There is no doubt that the way of thinking of human beings and how a human being thinks has a great effect upon the choices that that person makes and his or her acts. In other words, belief and one's way of thinking or the ideology of a human being plays an important role in his or her practice and behavior.

'Ideal', also from this root, means 'model', ‘exactly as one's beliefs are', or 'what one would wish for.' But today the word 'ideology' has other meanings: First, in a general sense, ideology means or refers to a school of thought and action and the collection of all of the guidelines of that school of thought and action whether at the level of thought or at the level of action. When we use the word 'ideology' in these lessons, we refer to just this.

Second, ideology in the particular sense, refers only to the behavior of a human being and the rules of practice (the do's and don’ts). In this case, we will refer to this as a 'world view' or the basic ideas of a school of thought and action.] It is the general meaning of ideology, that is, a collection of component’s of the belief system of human beings which are used for the word maktab, school of thought and action.